Prague’s Academy of Performing Arts will hold multiple celebrations in the upcoming academic year 2020/2021. The 27th of October marks precisely 75 years since the President of Czechoslovakia, Edvard Beneš, signed a decree confirming the foundation of an unprecedented higher educational institution in our country. Since 1945, AMU has been educating students in the fields of theatre, film, television, music and dance. The celebrations will start on 1 October, which is also the official beginning of the new academic year, and will last until its end on 30 September 2021.
Early in October, AMU will release special well-wishing videos as part of the celebrations through its social media and official website; in the videos, congratulations will come from current students, teachers and employees as well as from famous graduates who are now luminaries of the world of art. Congratulators include Polish film director and scriptwriter Agnieszka Holland; student Daria Kashcheeva whose bachelor film, Daughter, won the prestigious Student Oscar; National Theatre actress Taťána Medvecká; and globally renowned harpist and a Royal College of Music in London teacher Jana Boušková. AMU has shot a symbolic 75 videos to mark its remarkable anniversary.
Well-wishing videos to AMU also come from the Deans of all three Faculties, Doubravka Svobodová (DAMU), Andrea Slováková (FAMU) and Ivan Klánský (HAMU), as well as from Jan Hančil’s Vice-Rector team. The Rector says on the major anniversary: “AMU is launching the celebration of 75 years of its existence in a year when it is also facing unprecedented challenges caused by a pandemic that is severely affecting the social, cultural and artistic life in the Czech Republic and across the world. I am convinced that AMU will use all the creative potential of its teachers, students and everybody who supports teaching art so that the school emerges from this difficult situation enriched by new educational ideas. By overcoming issues and restrictions, art teaching and art as such gain strength and find new avenues.”
The extensive programme that AMU will offer during the year will be accessible to the academia and the general public.
Although AMU in cooperation with its Faculties have prepared many events to commemorate its 75th anniversary in various ways, it also expects their dates and forms to adapt to the current epidemiologic situation.
During the academic year, the school will bestow three honorary doctorates and three gold medals, one for each Faculty. Divadlo Inspirace will host the seventh edition of Territories of Art, a conference for doctoral art students that AMU organises in cooperation with other higher art schools, on 6 November. A day for children from children’s homes, which AMU organises along with the Children in Action Foundation, will take place on 12 February 2021. On the occasion, almost thirty children from primary and secondary schools who consider studying art will tour the school. Each Faculty will prepare a special programme for children to illustrate the opportunities of such studies.
AMU to launch an outdoor exhibit mapping the 75 years of its history late in June
The exhibit to mark 75 years since the foundation of the Academy of Performing Arts will feature a slice of history of all three Faculties and present their major personalities and events associated with them. The exhibit will be held outdoors so that it can be accessible to the general public. The exhibit will also expand the range of the planned anniversary events with a special programme.
The celebrations will end in the autumn of 2021 with a large concert, currently being prepared by HAMU.
For more information on the programme, please follow AMU’s website at https://www.amu.cz/cs/.